


Five Times Tony Died and The One Time He Didn’t

by iron_empress



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Civil War Team Iron Man, Extremis Tony, F/M, Inhuman Tony, Team Iron Man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-01 13:26:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18801247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iron_empress/pseuds/iron_empress
Summary: I love Tony 3000.





	Five Times Tony Died and The One Time He Didn’t

**Author's Note:**

> I love Tony 3000.

1.

Tony runs as fast as his little legs can take him. He hears his father’s footsteps thundering behind him, creeping closer and closer, so he pushes himself to the limit and dodges his father’s grabbing hands. Dad usually lets him in the lab to play with spare parts but after this, he’ll never let him step foot in it. _It was an accident_ , Tony cried but Dad wasn’t having any of it. His hands inched towards his belt and Tony, familiar with what would come next, ran for it. There was a beaker of shimmering, clear liquid on the table and out of instinct, Tony tried to pick it up, only to accidentally knock it over, causing it spill onto the table and leak all over Dad’s ‘very important’ paperwork. Probably something to do with finding Captain America.

There’s no point in screaming for help; Mamma is at a party, Jarvis is visiting Ana at the hospital and he’s staying the night and Dad told the maids not to come if he calls, so he’s all alone. He weaves his small body in and out of the rooms, each one leading to another and makes a dash for the extravagant staircase it takes him so long to climb. Mamma carries him but Dad absolutely refuses because only babies get carried. His foot slips on the first step and everything that happens next is a blur. The edge of a wooden stair catches him straight on the forehead and his whole world turns black.

Tony wakes up hours later, still at the bottom of the staircase, dark hair matted with dry blood. Glancing at the window, he sees that it’s nighttime, so he walks up to his room and drifts off to sleep. It’s a school night, after all.

The next day, he enters the kitchen and sees Howard standing there, watching him with a strange look in his eye. He never looked at him the same after that.

2.

The shrapnel digs into his chest with every breath he takes and he asks whoever might be listening, whoever’s up there to end it here. Why does he deserve to live when those bright-eyed, bushy-tailed soldiers who had their whole lives ahead of them died for him? The answer is he doesn’t. Yet here he lies on a wooden table, an older man gazing at him from across the room. A heavy weight lies on top of his chest as horror scenes flash before his eyes. It almost feels like he’s watching a movie. Bloody hands, a gaping hole where his heart should be, a car battery. A goddamn _car battery_ hooked up to his chest, keeping him alive.

“What the _hell_ did you do to me?” He slurs at the pensive looking man. His vision stretches and wavers but he keeps his eyes pinned onto the stranger.

“I saved your life. You died during the surgery, Stark. I thought you were a goner but you pulled through.” He says with startling indifference. His hands are stained red.

Open heart surgery in a rusty cave with most likely unsterilised equipment and he’s still alive. Tony would call it a miracle if he believed in that kind of thing. _Whoever’s up there must really not want to see me,_ he thinks to himself, resisting the urge to scratch at his chest. He nearly vomits at the thought of touching whatever it is that’s on his chest. A soft blue light reflects onto the dusty ceiling.

“So, what’s the name of my knight in shining armour?“ Tony says, locking eyes with the man, happy to convince himself that this is all a nightmare, a side effect from whatever pills he took the night before. Of course, the logical part of his brain tells him that this isn’t at all a nightmare, some might say he’s getting his just desserts. An atonement for all the horrors he and Howard unleashed onto the world. _How many nightmares have I been the cause of,_ he wonders to himself with a bitter smile.

Snapping himself out of his self-deprecating thoughts, he realises the man didn’t answer his question. “Well?”

A few seconds later and he answers reluctantly. “Call me Yinsen.”

3.

Tony has never realised just how much this Fury guy talks. Thank God for these sunglasses. He’d probably be angry if he knew Tony was sleeping through most of his boy band speech. A few minutes later and Tony feels his veins ache and his heart start to pound. He takes a sip of Fury’s cold drink to wet his dry tongue but it only makes him feel even thirstier. The room seems to shrink in on itself and Tony subconsciously does the same. Well, as much as he can in a metal suit.

“Is it just me or is it getting a little too hard to breathe?” He mumbles before completely passing out on the table. Cursing up a storm, Fury reaches over to check his pulse only to come up with nothing.

“Romanoff!” He yells and she storms into the diner, syringe in hand. With his nod of consent, she jabs it into his neck. Grabbing one of her mini tasers from her belt, she holds it to the suit’s arc reactor, causing it to convulse with power and jolt Tony back into the land of the living.

Tony jumps up in shock. “What the hell just happened?” He gasps, holding onto his heart through the suit.

“You died.” Fury deadpans.

“Oh.” Tony replies with a wince, rubbing at the arc reactor. “What were we talking about again?”

4.

Tony always found space pretty, like most people do. But if he ever gets out of this alive, he’ll make it his life’s goal to never go again and maybe leave a bad yelp review while he’s at it. The nuke flies towards the oncoming army and as it goes off, the millions of stars before his wide eyes are hidden by the violent explosion. Smoke fills the atmosphere and the side of the suit’s interface beeps, lighting up an intense red.

**Oxygen levels: Below 20%**

“Jarvis?” No answer.

The suit can withstand long periods of flight, crashing waters, machine guns, just about anything. Anything except space. Parts of the suit break off his body as Tony falls back down into earth’s atmosphere at a sloth’s pace.

**Oxygen levels: Below 5%**

Tony uses his last breath on one last sentence, knowing it’d be a miracle if he made it. _“I’m so sorry, Pepper.”_

When he wakes up on the floor with Jolly Green towering over him along with the boy scout, he laughs, a real one, not the fake ones he keeps for the press but a real one with all his teeth on show. _I did it._

At that moment, Tony was willing to declare himself a man of God because seriously, He must _really_ love him.

5.

“Boss, _Boss_!” Friday’s distressed voice sounds out in the cold Siberian air but nobody responds. For the first time since her ‘birth’, she is completely and utterly alone. Boss is literally on the verge of death, even Friday is finding it hard to pick up his vitals. The distress calls she sent out most likely haven’t been received due to the suit being disabled by the Captain. _Why did he do this,_ she wonders, _weren’t they friends?_

“Fri?” Boss murmurs, coughing up a substantial amount of blood. He shifts minutely, causing a jagged part of the suit to dig further into his rib cage. Gasping in pain, he passes out once more.

“Boss!” Friday cries. His vitals have fallen even lower and his heartbeat sound like it’s about to stop any minute now and severe cold isn’t doing much to help. Friday feels so useless. Her main aim was to protect Boss and she has failed in this. After one more excruciating minute, it finally happens. His slowing heart gives up.

There’s only a small window of time. Maybe...

“Activating Last Resort Protocol.” Friday says with absolute confidence. There’s no way she’s letting Boss die, not when the cure lies in the suit. The world needs him, _she_ needs him.

A needle ejects from the arm plate of the suit, carrying an electric blue solution inside it. It injects itself into the soft flesh of Tony’s arm and his arteries light up like Christmas. Friday watches in wonderment as every single injury of his is healed, starting from the major to the minor. Friday waits until every wound is knitted up and his blood supply is fully replenished before trying her luck.

“Boss?” She asks tentatively.

Tony’s eyes flicker open to reveal eyes as bright as the tesseract. “Hey, baby girl.”

+1.

 _‘It worked.’_ Tony thinks as Peter lands in front of him. His eyes are red with tears and he’s saying something thought Tony isn’t quite so sure what it is. He tries to smile at him, tell him it’s okay, that he missed him _so much_ but his body isn’t co-operating with him. Instead, he just stares. The kid moves to the side and Pepper takes his place. Tony slumps in relief. _Pepper, the light of my life,_ is what he wants to say but his mouth feels like it’s been stitched shut. He strains to hear what she has to say and he finally catches something.

_“You can rest now.”_

His eyes fight to stay open, committing every curve and detail of Pepper’s face before closing them in exhaustion. He sees them all in his head, clear as day. Pepper, Morgan, Rhodey, Happy, Peter and Harley. His little makeshift family that he wouldn’t change for the world. He hopes wherever he’s going, he’ll be able to watch over them, if only for a while before he gets whisked off to wherever else he needs to be. _They’re going to be okay. **I’m** going to be okay._

 _“My darling merchant...“_ An airy voice rings out into the emptiness and with great difficulty, Tony reopens his eyes. A woman dressed in pure white levitates above him, soft tendrils of light following her every move. Lady Death.

Tony glances at the others but they barely bat at eyelash at the phantasm hanging above them.

 _“They cannot see me, only you can.”_ She announces.

‘Why are you here?’ Tony thinks, presuming she can hear him.

_“It is not time for you yet, my dear. I have bargained with the fates to buy you more time.”_

‘Why?’

 _“Because you too deserve happiness. Your life has been full of sacrifices, bearing no fruit but now, nothing stands between you and your desires, not even me.”_ She cracks a ghostly smile. _“Besides, you have already evaded me five times, what’s one more?”_

Tears spring into Tony’s eyes as an agonising burning sensation runs throughout the entire right side of his body. ‘It hurts.’

 _“Not for much longer.”_ Her hand draws near to his dirty cheek and as soon as she comes into contact with him, the ashen skin gains its colour and the cracks running down his face and arms weave together into a semblance of what it used to be.

All those surrounding him gasp and gape at his glowing state, some having to shield their eyes due to the sheer luminosity.

Before he falls unconscious, Lady Death draws closer to him until she is only a hand span away. _“Do not be mistaken, Dear Anthony. When it is your time, I will gather your soul and you will move on to the next life. But until then, enjoy domesticity.”_ With one last impish smile, she vanishes from sight in a burst of starlight and promise.


End file.
